"Take me out! Take me out! Take me out!"
The repeated words, like the sound of a grand bell, continuously exploded in Nanling Yaohua's mind, causing her to be taken aback.
She can actually sense my existence?
Black Emperor Senior and that hateful woman were able to sense it because one was skilled in divination and the other understood fated relationships; Lu Yibei had already explained all of that...
So why is this one able to?
After floating in a daze for a few seconds, Nanling Yaohua noticed that the spiritual energy fluctuations around her had significantly increased by several levels. The influence of the trapped individual was still limited to continuously emitting angry and strongly commanding words in her mind. Nanling Yaohua breathed a sigh of relief, her willow-like eyebrows slightly raised. freeweɓnovel.cøm
Is that all?
That ill-intentioned fellow in the void even knows to offer tempting conditions when trying to bewitch someone. You offer nothing and expect me to take you, someone of unknown origin and clearly dangerous, out? That’s too naive!
Nanling Yaohua thought, then floated forward a short distance, coming to within a meter of the figure.
"Hey, can you hear me? If you can, tell me who you are, what you've been through, and who imprisoned you here. After I hear it, I'll decide whether or not to find someone to help you get out."
Since this guy can make sounds in my mind, he can probably hear me when I speak, right? Nanling Yaohua thought.
She always hated seeing others suffer. Whether it was the residents around the Yumen Sand Sea, the lone Psychics of Hua City, or her classmates in Dream City, they had all received her righteous assistance...
This was also why Lu Yibei gave her nicknames like "Heroine" and "Great Hero Hua" when they were in Dream City.
The battered individual before her was clearly enduring unimaginable pain.
Although he looked ferocious, emitted corrupt and filthy spiritual energy fluctuations, and his way of "requesting" help didn't feel friendly.
But, does looking ferocious and having a bad temper necessarily mean one is a bad person?
Anyway, communicating doesn't cost anything, so at least let's hear what he has to say, right?
After listening, if he's worth helping, then help him. Otherwise, act on behalf of heaven!
After she posed her question, the continuous murmuring in Nanling Yaohua's mind suddenly stopped. After waiting quietly for a few seconds, she finally heard words other than the repetitive "Take me out."
"I am Tong Fengwu... If the young lady can help me escape this place, I will surely repay you greatly! I see your future shrouded in dark clouds, likely due to being entangled by evil spirits and experiencing bad luck. Perhaps I can help you reverse your fortune."
Upon hearing this, Nanling Yaohua's heart rate suddenly accelerated.
She instinctively thought of the voice that came from an unknown place in that chaotic, pitch-black space, filled with a bewitching quality.
Could the evil spirit this guy mentioned refer to the source of that voice? Nanling Yaohua thought, her lips slightly parted, about to press for more, but then she heard the words echoing in her mind become confused and blurred, seemingly falling back into that previous state of frantic anger.
"Wealth scattered, people gathered; wealth gathered, people scattered; acquired righteously, used with joy..."
"The path is determined by heaven, but affairs are made by man..."
"Hahaha, wrong, all wrong, the outcome is irreversible..."
What does that mean? Nanling Yaohua tilted her head.
At first, realizing that there was actually someone in this world who could communicate with her in some sense, she couldn't help but feel joy. However, before that excitement faded, hearing the other party's muddled, fragmented words, a cloud of doubt settled over her heart.
"Can you speak more clearly and in more detail? I don't quite understand what you mean. If you're like this, I'm afraid I can't help you."
However, her request received no response. The repeated words once again echoed in her mind.
"Take me out, take me out, take me out!"
Accompanying the renewed low whispers exploding in her mind, the figure, previously pinned lifelessly to the metal chair, began to struggle violently.
"Ding—ding ding—ding—!"
The metal spikes that had just moments ago bound the figure's body snapped one after another. A sharp buzzing echoed, and fragments of the metal spikes flew out, tracing long, lingering, yellowish-brown translucent trails in the air.
Soon, of the dozens of black spikes binding his body, only two at his hip joints remained, barely holding on, preventing him from breaking free.
Watching such a bizarre sight, Nanling Yaohua felt a faint prickling sensation on her scalp.
The first time she saw this emaciated, ferocious-looking individual, fixed by black spikes, she thought of a specimen still in the process of being made.
She had read related books in the library at the Dream City school. Those books described a stage in the specimen-making process where the specimen's joints are fixed with nails, just like this.
And now, the scene before her was like a specimen that had suddenly come to life halfway through its creation.
His chaotic consciousness made him scream madly, and the pain of his pierced joints made him struggle violently. His already scarred body was continuously torn by the black spikes during his struggles, and blackened, shattered flesh and blood scattered everywhere.
Soon, that already terrifyingly ferocious body became a bloody, shapeless mess.
As the scattered spiritual energy, carrying a strong decaying aura, surged dramatically, a yellowish-brown thick fog, as if countless mosquitoes and flies were swirling, spread within this enclosed spherical secret space at a visible speed.
At first, it only lingered around the grotesque figure, but a few breaths later, it filled the entire space.
Being in it was like being at the center of a large-scale plague; an indescribable sense of oppression and foul discomfort quietly spread through her heart.
Affected by the thick fog, Nanling Yaohua's vision became somewhat blurry, but she still vaguely saw the grotesque wound revealed on the figure's back after he sat up.
There was no other reason; the wound was too large, too obvious.
A wound spanning his entire back, about three fingers wide, was roughly stitched together with the same black metal threads used to sew his mouth, like a multi-legged, asymmetrical worm writhing on his back.
Through the unfully stitched gaps in the wound, one could see that the inside of the wound was hollow, as if a large piece of bone and flesh had been forcibly dug out, leaving a long, strip-shaped cavity.
Staring at the wound for a few seconds, until the gradually thickening mist completely blurred her vision, Nanling Yaohua suddenly came to her senses, realizing something was wrong.
Where was his spine? Was his spine dug out? He's so injured, yet he's still Lived it, even able to move? Nanling Yaohua thought.
Just as she was pondering, an alarm suddenly blared within the spherical space.
Immediately following, a rumbling sound, like grinding boulders, echoed.
"Boom—!"
On the ceiling, on the walls... on those curved walls inscribed with complex incantations, countless tiny specks of eerie green light appeared, like eyes.
Accompanying the roar, the curved wall directly facing the figure slowly opened, revealing a gap. Sparks flew from the overloaded mechanical structures in the gap, and a cloud of thick smoke billowed out.
The next second, a sharp whooshing sound rang out.
Countless shimmering golden coins flew out from the gap, as if a giant bag containing a vast amount of golden coins had been torn open from below, and the coins poured out like a torrent, showering down upon the figure's body.
In an instant, skin ripped open, flesh and blood splattered.
What Nanling Yaohua found incredible was that the scattered golden coins, though seemingly astonishing in number, disappeared as if consumed and absorbed into the figure's body after landing on him, with only waves of intense spiritual energy fluctuations spreading out.
The collision of spiritual energy waves created a surge of air, rippling out in circles of pale gold arcs, rushing in all directions and violently tearing through the pervasive thick fog.
A few breaths later, when the golden coins stopped falling, the figure ceased struggling and lay back on the metal chair like a corpse.
And the wounds left by his previous violent struggles and the falling golden coins had, at some unknown point, recovered completely.
He lay there quietly, surrounded by the thick fog.
After a sinister, viscous sound, black spikes grew out from within his body, piercing his vital joints.
After a failed attempt at "escaping," he was imprisoned once again.
Nanling Yaohua, "..."
— — — —
Meanwhile, as Nanling Yaohua was in the underground, observing the unknown figure struggling, Lu Yibei, who was in the waiting room, felt a burning pain in her eyes, uncontrollably, due to the intense spiritual energy fluctuations continuously rising from underground.
As if to burn her brain to ashes, the burning sensation surged from the depths of her eyes towards her brain, making her consciousness momentarily hazy.
In this state, if it were in the past, she would have uncontrollably been completely drawn into the illusions created by the power that caused her eyes' abnormality.
Fortunately, Lu Yibei now possessed the Goddess Beiling Seal. After several forced activations of the spiritual seal, she finally suppressed the restless state of her eyes, avoiding the risks associated with directly perceiving terrifying entities.
However, during the process of suppressing her agitated eyes, she still inevitably caught glimpses of some strange scenes.
She saw a man dressed in worn, plain clothes, who, at a glance, had clearly endured much suffering in life. At the hospital entrance, he pounded the ground with his hands, heedless of the pain, crying heartbreakingly, "Damn thieves, that was life-saving money! What do I do now, boo hoo hoo!"
She saw two people sitting opposite each other in a luxuriously and elegantly decorated study, with no lights on, discussing chilling matters.
"That's your father, are you sure you want to lay hands on him?"
"Heh heh, that's your husband! Don't you also want him dead?"
"Stop talking nonsense, we both know very well that if he doesn't die, we won't get a single penny of this vast family fortune!"
She also saw a tall, upright man in a bright, spacious office, swaying a cup, speaking coldly.
"Just do as I say!"
"But CEO..." The female secretary behind the man looked bitter, "Your [N O V E L I G H T] decision might cause hundreds of thousands, even millions, of people to go bankrupt and lose their homes. Are you sure you want to do this?"
"Did you not understand what I said?" The man turned around and said viciously, "Just go when I tell you to. If they don't go bankrupt, I will!"
Lu Yibei, "..."
How strange! What is all this about!